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A Lurker's History of Paradox and the Paradox Community *
by Stacy Rowley

[Editor's Note: All the graphics in this article (except the two icons) are links to a larger version of the same image. Placing your mouse pointer over the graphic will show popup and status bar info about what the photograph is. The larger images open in the same smaller dialog window, so you might wish to leave that window open while reading the article.]


The Early DOS Days: the People (the Community)

During the few years of Paradox 3.0 and 3.5 (and 3.51), there was an outpouring of activities and contributors.

During the early years there were a number of people entering the Paradox world. While some arrived from the mainframe world, many came from various fields and lacked computer experience.

Also during these years, local computer groups had formed and were spawning Special Interest Groups (SIGs) including those for Paradox.

LAPALS started in Los Angeles with Brian Smith, David Berg, Tim Colling, Leon Chalnick, Phil Wolfe, and later, John Moore and Wolf Kadavanich. There were geographic sections, including San Diego, and LAPALS published Instant Scripts, a monthly newsletter with technical content that was available to more than members. In New York City, Clare Chase, Alan Zenreich, and Jim Kocis were among the founders of the NYPC Paradox SIG. When able to attend, Zenreich ran a Power Users' session at the end of the meeting, which always seemed to contain "nuggets." Starting in 1990 and continuing for several years, the Zenreich family hosted a summer picnic, to which came people from the SIG and from some far-ranging home bases.
Luke Chung and Jim Kocis Chicago's Paradox SIG members included Dan Ehrmann, Bill Todd, Harry Goldman, Kevin Smith, and, later, Vince Kellen. Larry Lynn and Luke Chung fueled the Washington, D.C. SIG,
Steve Caple Mitch Koulouris as Steve Caple, Woody Splawn, and Mitch Koulouris did in Sacramento, Greg Salcedo and Martin Rudy in Seattle, Brian Bushay and Steve Feldman in Minneapolis, Ken Schachat in Boston, and Joann Iverson in Philadelphia. Philadelphia's Tom Reese collected useful BORDB message threads and freeware/shareware from the libraries and produced a disk of the month. At the height of local PC groups and SIGs, the U. S. had over two dozen Paradox SIGs. By 1996, they grew to over five dozen according to the listing in Paradox Informant magazine. In Europe, Peter Olausson was a founder of the Swedish Paradox User Group.

Alan Zenerich Even more important than SIGs was the BORDB forum on CompuServe in which the above people were "regulars." Many of the above people were "helper elves" to answer questions and further discussions. It was at that time that people like Alan Zenreich established the tone of the forum, that this was a Paradox community devoted to helping each other to learn and to help shape Paradox. Also, third party products and consulting information could be available in forum libraries, but the threads were not about commercials and commercialism. Snippets of code and humor abounded. Responses to questions were multiple and appearing in less than a day if not within an hour or two. Many contributed messages, but many more merely lurked for the many "nuggets" that appeared.

As Alan Zenreich once stated, "Paradox is easy to use. Databases are difficult." With all the newbies around, the CompuServe forum was school and recess rolled in to one. Dan Ehrmann pulled together a paper on data normalization that was placed in a forum library and contributed a needed education base.

Helper elf and psychologist Dr. Don Schubert (a.k.a. Dr. Kranky) monitored the temperature of the forum and helped keep it in control as the resident shrink. Borland brought Don on as the first member of TeamB. Don learned Paradox in part from the forum and used interactive Paradox in his practice. Between patients he would keep abreast of forum threads and inject his humor. Later on, Don went to work for awhile at Borland in the later Borland days of Paradox for Windows. He died about 1999.

John Moore Over the years, various people cut their Paradox teeth with the CompuServe Forum. The person who probably gained the most from asking questions, his own hard work, and then answering questions himself was John Moore (a.k.a. Farmer John). John operated a plant nursery and wanted to use Paradox to help run it back in 1988. He not only succeeded in doing so, but he became a forum helper elf and retired from the nursery business to become a Paradox application developer. From there, he moved into networks, Delphi, JBuilder, web site development, ... John bootstrapped himself from ground zero to dizzying heights! But even today he continues to repay his long-ago-paid-off debt to the Paradox community by frequently stopping by the Corel Paradox newsgroup to answer questions and chime in with useful comments. Early on, John enriched the forum with his earthy farmer's comments and humor. Much was made of field pies (a.k.a. cow chips), and John brought a table centerpiece of field pies to the second Paradox Conference. This centerpiece of course was placed on the corrupt table, one of many long picnic-like tables that were part of one evening's meal and where CompuServe devotees gathered to eat and amuse. John still has this ornament, and hope remains that a picture will be forthcoming for inclusion here.

Lance Leonard Lance Leonard learned Paradox after he joined Borland's Tech Support in 1990 and became part of BORDB where he responded to many, many problems. In fact, there were so many responses from him that there was considerable BORDB discussion as to whether he really existed. (Maybe several Borland people were responding on the same CompuServe account.) There was a rumor when he left Tech Support that TS imposed a 9 p.m. curfew just in case they hired another person who didn't know enough to go home.


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The Early DOS Days: the People (the product add-ins)


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